Travels and Travails in the London Underground
by Toaofwriting
Summary: The Doctor and co are heading to check out a new alien threat, but must do so inconspicuously. The answer? A nice little ride on the London Underground. What could possibly go wrong? My little tribute to the UNIT family. Two-shot.
1. Chapter 1

**Needless to say, I don't own anything. In fact, I doubt I'm capable of owning such magnificence as these characters. **

"Doctor?" came the Brigadier's voice. The Doctor was lying on his back under the TARDIS console with the doors open, fiddling with the wires. Lethbridge-Stewart walked into the TARDIS, bearing a few papers in one hand and his stick under the other.

"Ah, hello, Ms. Grant," he said, nodding to the Doctor's current companion, Jo Grant, who was sitting on the TARDIS console, swinging her legs.

"There's a report that an alien spaceship was seen near Devesham," he said. "Do you want to check it out?"

"Yes, whatever you say, old chap," the older man replied absently. The Brigadier waited patiently, exchanging a look with Jo. Exactly four and a half seconds later, the Doctor pulled himself out and climbed nimbly to his feet. He grabbed the papers the Brigadier was holding, speed-read all of them in a few seconds, grabbed his cape from where it was lying on a panel, and rushed out the doors.

"Come along, Jo, Brigadier, no use dawdling around!" he shouted over his shoulder. Shaking his head, Lethbridge-Stewart hurried out of the TARDIS after the Time Lord, catching up to him with Jo a couple of steps behind.  
"He always does that, doesn't he?" Jo murmured.

"It can be rather irritating sometimes," agreed her superior. The Doctor suddenly stopped and swiveled to face them.

"I'm afraid I recognize the design of this spaceship. The builders are known as Scaneodiluvians, and they're very good at surveillance. This lot will probably be watching every major road in Britain from their spaceship, which will most likely be behind some sort of force field. We'll need to knock out their communication and/or surveillance systems if we want to bring a UNIT convoy up."

"Then we'll have to figure out some alternative transportation," decided the Brigadier. "We'll go up to these…Scaneodiluvians…and distract them long enough for Yates to bring up a fully armed UNIT convoy with the scientific van. There, you'll be able to knock out their force field and we can negotiate, fight, or both."

"Excellent."

The Doctor took two more steps, then stopped and looked around suspiciously.

"What sort of alternative transportation?"

The Doctor stood in a London Underground station, with Sergeant Benton, the Brigadier, and Jo grouped around him, looking at the timetables. After a fair bit of arguing, he had been reluctantly persuaded by the Brigadier to take London public transport inconspicuously.

Or, rather, as inconspicuous as the Doctor could be on the Tube, which, as his UNIT friends were about to discover, wasn't very much. While Lethbridge-Stewart, Jo, and Benton were wearing civilian clothes and small backpacks containing military equipment, the Doctor wore his typical ruffled shirt, velvet jacket, and opera cape.

The young man in the ticket booth, watched the quartet walk up, obviously trying to keep a professional face and not gawp at the Doctor's clothing.  
"Four tickets to Devesham, please," said the Brigadier.

"Sure. Would you like a senior discount, sir?" he asked the Doctor, indicating the list of prices.

"Well, you definitely qualify for that, Doc," said Benton.

"Show respect for your elders, Benton," said the Brigadier sternly, his moustache twitching upwards.

"Yes sir-er, Mr. Lethbridge-Stewart," he replied. Jo winked at him.

"I'll cough up a few coins for you, Brigadier," the Doctor said, ignoring Benton. This he proceeded to do, quite literally, seemingly producing a pound coin from his mouth, flipping it in the air, catching it, and lying it on the desk with a flourish. He then proceeded to pull a smaller coin from behind each ear.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you're still a few short," he said, counting up the change.

"You should have seen the last me," muttered the Doctor, searching his pockets. "Now _he _was a few short, in more ways than one."

Benton and the Brigadier both stifled snorts.

After rummaging in his pockets and removing a toy Batmobile, a variety of LEGO bricks, his sonic screwdriver, a bookmark with the Seal of Rassion on it, a bag of jelly babies which he offered around (no one else wanted one, so he popped one in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully), a yellow wire, and a coat hangar, he finally pulled out a coin purse filled with change from different eras. With the assistance of Benton, he managed to find enough (mostly from the right time period, although there was a 2p coin minted in 1991 that would cause a fair bit of trouble for the poor clerk when he tried to use it at the grocery store later that evening) money to pay for four tickets.

Once that ordeal was over, they got through the ticket machines without too much commotion, although a few people did stare at the strangely dressed man tugging his opera cape out of the gates of the turnstile, muttering a few words in what was, to them, gibberish, but was in fact Second Age North Venusian.**(1)**

As they went through the tunnels, the Doctor proceeded to talk loudly about the advertising posters hung on the walls (_"Who would want to go to Bath? Went there once in the 1870s, horrible place,")_, then proceeded to grab a copy of a _Daily Telegraph _someone had left lying around.

"Brings back memories of the first time we met, doesn't it, Doctor?" asked the Brigadier, looking around. "You, me, the Underground…."

"Except without the Great Intelligence, robot Yeti, and webs all over the place," the Doctor agreed.

"And that this time, of course, I am much more fashionable," he added, straightening his jacket. The Brigadier coughed into his fist.

"I feel as if I were there, too," said Benton, his brow furrowed. "Except that I couldn't have been…."**(2)**

"Well, I know I certainly wasn't," said Jo cheerfully.

They arrived at their tunnel, only to find that there had been a five-minute delay. This caused the three humans and their Time Lord companion to engage in an earnest criticism of the Underground and public transportation on Earth in general.

"It won't get much better over the next few decades, let me assure you," the Doctor said.

"T-Mat will improve things a little, but then you'll have to worry about the Ice Warriors taking it over."

A slightly guilty, slightly wistful look passed over his face**(3)** before he continued.

"Now, the Mars-Venus rocket run was always quite punctual." He started rummaging in his pockets again. "Have my license here somewhere…"

"Ice Warriors, Doctor? Should UNIT worry about them?"

"No, no, not to worry, my dear fellow, I'll tell you all about them when we get back…home. All you need to know is that the Martians prefer cold environments and are vulnerable to extreme heat."

"Martians?" asked Jo. "I don't suppose they happen to be little green men, do they?"

"No, big green men in heavy armor with built-in sonic cannon,"**(4)** shot back her mentor.

"Ah. I see," said the Brigadier calmly, forestalling one of their famous bantering matches.

"Not to worry, my dear fellow, I'm sure there will be some alien menace soon enough that you'll be able to shoot down."

"I look forward to it," responded Lethbridge-Stewart drily.

"Sounds like the train," said Benton, turning towards the end of the tunnel. Several other commuters rose from their benches and moved forwards, some dragging or wearing backpacks.

The train arrived and hissed slowly to a stop.

"Hmm," the Doctor murmured, observing the braking action. "Perhaps I ought to insert an anti-inertia device into Bessie's workings **(5)** when I get her back…."

"Sorry?" asked Benton.

"Nothing, dear chap, just thinking," smiled the Doctor apologetically.

_Train Number 394 to Devesham. Please stand back from the doors. Please mind the gap!_

Announced a pleasant female voice.

The Doctor stared at Jo.

"Good grief, Jo, do people really need to be told to mind the gap?"

"Honestly, Doctor, it's just a thing. Don't worry so much about it," said Jo.

"And you humans pay attention to 'things,' do you?"**(6)** asked the Doctor, garnering a few curious stares from the other commuters.

"Let's just find a seat," the common-sense Benton suggested. Although the car was crowded, all of them managed to find seats, the Doctor and Jo together, while the Brigadier sat opposite and Sergeant Benton a few seats down from him, ignoring the Doctor's disappointment that it was the same size inside and out.

The train rumbled off, clattering and clanking.

* * *

(1) This Doctor was quite fond of Venus and all things Venusian

(2) Funnily enough, he was, in a way. John Levene, famous for playing Sergeant Benton, first appeared as Yeti in the story being discussed, _The Web of Fear. _

(3) Check out the Second Doctor story _The Seeds of Death_ to see why.

(4) If anyone gets the reference to a certain Seventh Doctor story, put it in a review and I'll give you a free imaginary bag of Jelly Babies!

(5)He will.

(6) _The Sontaran Stratagem, _anyone?

**Reviews, please? :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**And now for Part Two, featuring characters that-surprise, surprise-I don't own**

"Now I know how a sardine feels," muttered Jo, feeling squashed. She looked over at the Doctor, who was engaged in a deep conversation with a man on his right, who looked to be a builder or construction worker of some sort.

Thankfully, he had finished questioning her on the idea of "mortgages," which he seemed to have never

heard of before, and thought a bit silly. She'd also managed to avoid his question about how much life insurance a man with thirteen lives could pick up. He'd then gone on to tell her about the Orient Express (in space), followed by doing a Sherlock Holmes-esque deduction of several of the passengers, and had topped it all off by nearly getting into a fight with a minor civil servant about his choice of clothing and politics.

"Now tell me, my man, when you're building, have you ever considered employing the third principle of Hartnell's Law, which states that…"

He trailed off into a shpiel involving a lot of gobbledygook that Jo didn't understand and, judging from the expression of his face, neither did the construction worker.

"No, sir, I haven't, said the man, looking faintly alarmed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, this is my stop."

He got up and moved to the doors along with a couple of other people, exiting as soon as the doors  
opened, to be replaced by an elderly gentleman, who looked to be about ten years older than the Doctor  
himself.

"Do you mind if I sit here? Everywhere else is full," he said.

"No, no of course not. Do sit down here, sir."

The man lowered himself into the seat with a chuckle and leaned his hands on his walking stick.

"I'm not as young as I used to be," he sighed.

"I know the feeling," the Doctor assured him. "Mind you, when I was young, I was barely any younger than I am now."

"Eh? What's that, sir?"

The Doctor caught the Brigadier's warning glance.

"Er, nothing, nothing at all, my dear chap. As a Doctor, I recommend a good dose of exercise every day. That'll do the trick. Make you feel young again. I myself am quite spry for my age."

Jo and Lethbridge-Stewart glanced at each other, remembering the times that he'd used his Venusian aikido to send enemies flying through the air like rag dolls, or simply overpowering them with a chop to the neck and a "HAI!"

After they had chatted for a while, the Doctor pulled out the newspaper he had picked up earlier and opened it. He criticized seven of the prominent figures mentioned in various articles, mentioned that he was personally acquainted with three of those, ripped out an article to show the Brigadier ("you may want to get some of your chappies onto this 'strange light in the sky'"), reassured Jo that the environmental problems would get sorted out in the future, got into a discussion with the Brigadier about the current Prime Minister, comparing him quite unfavorably to Winston Churchill, whom he'd apparently known quite well, and then, when he was finished, put it aside.

By this point, Jo had pulled a book to read out of her backpack.

Miraculously, the Doctor managed to remain quiet for another half-minute or so, then said, "Could I see that book you're reading, Jo?"

She nodded and, marking her place carefully, passed it over to him. He speed-read through it, snorted a few times, and then handed it back.

"Jo, I didn't know you liked science fiction," he said.

"Doctor, that's not fiction," she said, reclaiming it.

"Of course it is, there are so many errors in there it's almost laughable. Why didn't the man ask someone who was there?"

"Well, I'm sorry you don't approve of it," she said. "We humans have to find _some _way to expand our horizons."

"Expanding your horizons is a wonderful thing, Jo. But when you read fiction, do make sure you know that it's fiction. Remind me to take you to see _Star Wars _in a few years. Not entirely accurate, but these things never are, I suppose."

Jo tucked _A Short History of Everything_ by Richard Dawkins back in her pack.

"Here we are," said the Brigadier, glancing up at the sign above as the train slowed. Jo sighed.

"And thank goodness for that, too!"

**So, what did you think? Please leave a review! Thank you and have a nice day. **


End file.
